Another post got me thinking about this...

I have a great VSTi drum machine from Steinberg (Groove Agent) that operates quite like an arranger in many ways. You select a 'style', and then a plethora of 'Variations' is available, along with fills that go to and from each of them (there are dozens of 'Variations' with very subtle differences in them as they build from almost nothing to busier than Neil Peart on crack!... but that's another topic altogether!). You can even control the whole thing with MIDI commands, for an almost arranger-like live feeling.

But the coolest thing about the whole thing is, for every style, every variation, there is a button that says 'Half-time'. And this immediately thins the variation out to a half-time feel. Now obviously, some variations aren't quite as good as others on this, but 9/10, you get something useful.

I imagine how this works is, once the variation is created, the producer goes through it with a tool that 'marks' some of the notes to be not played when the 'half-time' button is pressed... (or maybe it's just an alternate variation, derived from the primary)

Now, I don't know about you, but this seems a FANTASTIC thing for any manufacturer to add to an arranger... Of course, you are going to have to think long and hard to make it work for the pitched parts, but what a great feature!

Now, while we all wait endlessly for someone to implement this, here's an idea...

How about taking your busy styles, and be the 'eraser' yourself?! Get in there on the drums part, and start erasing notes until you have a half time feel (maybe move some around, whatever). Save the style as xxxx1/2T (where xxxx is the main style name) and then make them either next to each other in your style list, or create Performance pairs that call them up.

Pretty hip, eh?